This may be a sign of how iPhone demand is faring amongst the competition

The latest iPhone may not be the rockstar Apple thought it would be. The Cupertino, California-based company slashed its orders for iPhone 5 screens by about 50 percent for the first quarter of 2013, and cut orders for other iPhone components as well.

This may be a sign of how iPhone demand is faring amongst the competition. Rival hardware makers like Samsung, whose devices are coupled with Google's Android operating system, have stolen much of the smartphone market share in the U.S.

For Q3 2012, Android was the No. 1 mobile operating system with a market share of 72.4 percent (compared to 52.5 percent in Q3 2011). Apple's iOS followed far behind at 13.9 percent (compared to 15 percent in Q3 2011).

As far as hardware goes, Samsung led the Q3 2012 market share at 22.9 percent (compared to 18.7 percent in Q3 2011) and Apple sat in third place at 5.5 percent (compared to 3.9 percent in Q3 2011).

Apple recently slipped behind in China's smartphone market as well. Apple, which previously held the No. 4 spot in the Chinese mobile phone market, slipped to No. 6 in Q3 2012 due to its low number of shipments, according to research firm IDC. Out of China's 60 million mobile phone shipments in Q3, Apple's iPhone accounted for less than 10 percent.

Apple's iPhone 5 was released in September 2012 with new features like a 4-inch screen and 4G LTE connectivity. It's available in either black or white, and is priced at $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model, and $399 for the 64GB model with two-year contracts.

Well, it's all about the market.. if you find a phone that meets your needs, go ahead and buy it! What you have between Android and iOS are two entirely different approaches, and given market shares currently -- I'd say we have a winner regardless of your personal feelings.

Apple has an incredible niche though.. Quite simply, it's great for dumb people. It's simplistic, easy to use, and reliable. These are the people not looking for extra features, as they have no concept on how to use them to begin with.

Forgo a sd slot that makes higher priced models redundant with the addition of an 8 dollar card..? "Why? If I wanted more memory, I'd get the better model.." MicroHDMI port to make it much easier to share content on the go.. "What's an HDMI? I don't know what that is." Removable battery..? "Why would I remove my battery? Wouldn't that make the phone not work..?" Now, I won't even tell you a friend's response when I mentioned NFC.. about football, lol.

Just seems the only iPhones I see anymore outside of the increasingly rare 'iElitists', are in the hands of those I would consider the absolute least tech-competent out of all I know. Mostly people like my dumb friends, my boss, and his 2 yr old son.. And they love it! They are perfectly happy with what they have, and are willing to pay a huge premium for it over just as capable feature phones. What's wrong with that..?

Listen, I think its great if someone picks Android because they want big screens and superficial tweakability at the expense of everything I listed above, those are totally legitimate reasons to go with something else. Some people are fine with giant phones and the other things large chassis allow for (mounting for SD cards and a removable battery, etc, something other small devices like the Nexus 4 also don't have room for). Again, that's cool. What's funny/sad is how Fandroids use widgets and gimmicks like SD cards to qualify it as a "hardcore" device for tech elitists.

It's all toy gimmickry IMHO if it is at the expense of better hardware, support, and applications, hardly anything to brag about, but keep your head held high and stroke your ego with your superior choice!

If we're talking about high end devices then the old iPhone 4S has outsold the popular Samsung GS2, GS3, and GN2 combined, and the performance-leading iPhone 5 is looking to have outsold what the 4S did in half the time.

If we're all exaggerating here, what is "niche" is the high end Android market. Android marketshare is highly inflated by low end featurephones and dumbphones, that's the bottom line.

This and many other reasons are why Android is still a second-tier platform for developers. Even Google's own apps and major revisions are sometimes iOS first before trickling down to Android. Over half of mobile internet traffic and app downloads are iOS despite it being "niche", and over half of Google's mobile revenue comes from iOS, not their own Android.

If iOS devices dominate the niche of the high end then I don't really see anything to look down upon, that's a pretty good place to be in. Android having big marketshare means little when so much of it is low end devices that don't really get used for the internet or apps.